Specialised Breeders Australia completes new rearing farm

SPECIALISED Breeders Australia recently announced it has completed and stocked a new rearing farm in central Victoria.

This new farm will rear Hy-Line and Lohmann parent stock from which commercial Hy-Line and Lohmann Brown Layers are bred. This completed project is the second of four planned new farms that provide world-class supply security to Australian egg producers.

SBA CEO Richard Rayner said, “Our key responsibility to Australian egg farmers is to provide a secure supply of high-quality layers.”
“To ensure this, we are in the midst of a multimillion dollar upgrade of our facilities to deliver best practice breeding, hatching and biosecurity measures across our production system.

“Last year we commissioned our state of the art commercial hatchery in Rochester and a new parent production farm. “This new rearing farm further spreads our biosecurity risks and improves our ability to deal with potential disease threats.” The site is ideally located as it is isolated from other poultry production while still being within reasonable travel times of SBA’s parent production farms.

“We have taken significant steps to ensure our high production and hygiene standards are met, and each of the four sheds on site has concrete flooring and clean skin surfaces for easy cleaning,” Mr Rayner said. “We have built a shower block for the site, with all staff and visitors requiring a shower and clothes change upon entry to comply with our biosecurity standards.

“The walkways on the site are fenced to further enhance biosecurity. “Importantly for our customers, this farm allows us to rear twice as many parents per batch as our previous rearing sheds, which means larger parent flocks, resulting in fewer donor flocks at the commercial level.”

SBA Livestock Manager Steve Ligoli said, “The farm uses deep litter rearing with slatted tables for perching and to enrich the environment, we have used Lubbing drinkers and VDL chain feeders inside the sheds.” “We’ve used cool room panelling for its insulation properties, and the use of LED lighting alongside variable-speed fans provides outstanding energy efficiency.

“Each shed has full environmental control via Skov control panels. “With two new farms, our new hatchery and an upgraded delivery fleet completed over the past two years we are proud of the investments we are making to provide greater livestock supply security to Australian egg producers.”

About Specialised Breeders Australia

SBA is the largest supplier of day-old chicks and point of lay pullets to the Australian egg industry. Based close to the Victorian city of Bendigo and employing about 140 staff, SBA supplies the world’s leading layer breeds, Hy-Line Brown and Lohmann Brown to Australian egg producers.